ACLJ Files Merits Brief at D.C. Circuit: President’s Power To Defend Israel From ICC Lawfare Is on the Line

Back in June, we told you about a major win. The D.C. Circuit stayed a district court injunction that had gutted President Trump’s sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the U.N. “Special Rapporteur” who spent years urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Israeli officials – including a sitting head of government. As we explained then, that stay was a significant victory for presidential authority, and the court specifically considered the ACLJ’s arguments in reaching it.

But a stay pending appeal only pauses the damage. Now the real fight begins – on the merits. The ACLJ has just filed a new amicus brief in Cali v. Trump at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the stakes could not be higher.

Albanese herself never challenged her own sanctions designation in court. Instead, her husband and daughter did – asking a district judge not just to protect their own narrow interests, but to invalidate the Secretary of State’s entire foreign policy determination and enjoin the President’s Executive order outright. The district court agreed, and its order swept far beyond anything the law allows. Our brief lays out why that ruling cannot stand.

First, Article III doesn’t let family members borrow someone else’s grievance. Under Department of State v. Muñoz, downstream harm to relatives doesn’t create a constitutional right to challenge government action directed at someone else. Albanese chose not to fight her designation. Her husband and daughter can’t do it for her.

Second, even where real injuries exist, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc. forbids courts from issuing relief broader than necessary to redress the actual plaintiffs’ actual harms. Nullifying an entire national security designation to fix a licensing dispute is like demolishing a house to patch a leaky faucet.

Third, and most fundamentally, the President’s authority over foreign affairs is at its constitutional peak when he’s protecting an American ally from a rogue international tribunal’s overreach. Whether the ICC’s campaign against Israel’s leadership constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” under IEEPA is a judgment call the Constitution commits to the Executive – not to a single district judge in Washington, D.C.

If this injunction stands, it doesn’t just hurt Albanese’s sanctions – it tells every future President that federal courts are open for business to second-guess sensitive foreign policy calls whenever a sanctioned foreign national’s relatives can find a sympathetic judge. That’s not how our Constitution works, and that’s exactly what we told the D.C. Circuit.

Make no mistake: This case is about far more than a single sanctions designation or a single family’s licensing dispute. It’s about whether the tools our government uses to stand with Israel against international lawfare can be stripped away by a court order.

The ACLJ has defended Israel’s right to exist and defend itself for decades – before international tribunals, before Congress, and before the courts of this country. We are not going to sit back while a district court hands the ICC and its allies a backdoor victory over an American ally.

We’ve been in this fight from the beginning, and we’re staying in it. The ACLJ will keep defending the President’s constitutional authority to stand with Israel and push back against international lawfare – all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.